Protect and Serve
by JonasGrant
Summary: The life of an LAPD SWAT member before, during and after the nuclear apocalypse.
1. Chapter 1

"LAPD SWAT!" I roar around the corner, my SMG held into a tight hug, "quit shooting at me, moron, I'm the negotiator!"

How the fuck I landed with that job is anyone's guess.

The corridor forms a T here, we're at the top and the suspect is at the bottom. Straight ahead is red team and behind me stands blue team.

The boss leads red, I lead blue and she's giving me a hard look right now. I'm not doing a good enough job for her.

"Give me your mirror." I ask Swanson, who must put his LMG to the floor and search his pouches for a while before handing me the snake cam. We call it a mirror, but it's actually an optic fiber wire.

Through the mirror, I see the masked man pointing his .45 Auto pistol to a woman on the floor. She's whimpering and crying that he shot her, which is pretty much the reason we're here in the first place.

"Listen, pal, the lady dies, you lose all bargaining edge and we'll put two rounds through your skull in a heartbeat, let us send someone to patch her up."

"You stay where you are, Imperialist scum!"

Might as well have just told me he's a communist.

"Xing, talk to this guy." I order our shotgun wielding Taiwanese girl.

She walks up to the corner, hugging the wall and squeezing past the others, but stops a step behind me, holding her riot shotgun with the same disgusted respect she shows every firearm.

"Tell him what?"

Good question… "Tell him we're at war." She gives me a puzzled look and the boss face palms, but Xing and I served together for a long time and she trusts me.

The man replies in a shocked tone, but they always sound like that, fucking yellow reds.

"Tell him this war is over resources, material necessities, we have no reason to hate one another or shame ourselves as human beings. Our countries are clashing to see who is right and who is wrong, it is our duty to ensure as little people suffer from it as possible."

She relays the message and seems puzzled at the answer. "He says your words make sense, you seem honorable."

The grin that spreads on the boss' face is the second creepiest thing I've seen today, the first being how she kisses her bowie knife before deployment. She's done it before every call for the last decade and I still think it's creepy as fuck.

"Ask him if he'll let me go check the victim." Xing smiles under her face mask. I know she does just by the way she sounds when she translates my demand.

You'd ask why we don't just shoot the bastard, since he's not even using the hostage as a meatshield, and I'd ask you what the fuck you're doing in a firefight asking questions, but if I had to answer, I'd explain that catching a Chinese spy alive is pretty damn hard and one hell of a career booster.

Xing nods once, "He agrees, wants you to come unarmed and alone…"

This could only get more cliché if the guy had a black moustache and offered me some big moral dilemma, but I get out of cover with my guns in Xing's hands and he just watches as I walk up to him and the woman.

Speaking of cliché, you always see shit like that; helpless woman help at gunpoint by evil red spy. It's the first time in my career it's ever happened so damned Hollywood-like. Most of the time, it's desperate people trying to get a ransom or robberies gone wrong. This guy, he's after something and is only buying himself time to figure a way out, or find whatever it is he's looking for.

I kneel next to the victim and he just watches. She's in her late twenties, office worker, got a .22 round stuck in her hip, but the man's carrying a Colt .45. Maybe he has a silenced pistol hidden somewhere and whipped out the big handgun when the cops showed up, so he could kick through our riot gear…

"What's your name?" The woman isn't in shock, her eyes are focused and she hasn't lost so much blood.

A .22 wound is small, granted, but it should still be bleeding a lot more than that, unless someone hit her with a Stimpack.

"Andrea…" Good actress, really, could have worked, had I not spent the last thirteen years around gunshot victims, when I'm not getting shot myself.

The spy isn't pointing his gun at me directly, but it would take only a flick of his wrist for it to be lined up with my skull.

One explanation for this little show would be that they wanted to attract law enforcement so they could just kill a few cops and cause some chaos, but they only let one of us get close and there's no bomb around here, we checked.

Bandaging the already healing wound, I review everything we know about this building…

One of RobCo's many administrative offices, rather small and poorly guarded. The guy practically telegraphed his identity just a minute ago, so he doesn't care if we know he's a Chinese spy… Maybe he's not…

No, Xing talked to him and he responded, he's Asian for sure… Both of them are spies and both worked here, maybe there's more, maybe these two are just a diversion, meant to buy another agent enough time to get whatever they're after.

Why not take it without breaking their cover, then?

Security screening! All employees are searched before they leave the office at night, but we didn't search anyone when evacuating the building, this would have allowed their pal to slip out some files unnoticed.

"Boss," I don't care if the reds hear me, I can deal with them, "they're decoys! We've got a third fuck getting away!"

All I can say before having two guns shoved in my face. Just a step to the right, holding the guy's wrist, and that's one postponed issue.

The girl shoots, but hits her friend's forearm and I slam him down on top of her. Orders are still to take them alive, so I knee the spy across the face when he sits up and stomps down on the lady's thigh in the same movement.

A femur is tough to break, but having a boot and a few hundred pounds of military hardware slammed on one's leg tends to make one less than mobile nonetheless. She takes another shot at me, the man now out of the way and sprawled a few feet ahead, but the tiny rounds bounce off the advanced armor covering my shoulder.

I kick her again, in the stomach this time, and she blurts out a thin stream of blood. The boot digs in her midsection as I bent over to snatch the weapon and break her nose.

The guy's back up and charging me, so I greet him with an uppercut that doesn't have as much success as I hoped it will. Next thing I know, he's sitting on me, his injured arm limp and his handgun in my face. My boot comes up just as the pin comes off.

Though my kick comes in time to screw his aim and save my mug from bursting like a melon, it doesn't daze or knock him off. He should at least be dizzy, but he's lining up another shot instead.

They train their spies good, that's a given. I try to punch him, but he dodges and squeeze the trigger.

The flash is blinding and my eardrums feel like they've been thorn out.

Smoke's everywhere, blurring everything as I shove the roaring fuck off me.

Flashbangs are magnesium bombs, very fucking hot. My suit can withstand that kind of heat, it's meant to survive energy weapons, his business suit isn't.

Once I've extinguished the poor fuck's face and confirmed that he and his girlfriend are properly sedated, I take a breather and check how I'm doing.

Everything's blurry and that's not just smoke. The helmet was meant to prevent disorientation from flashing a room like that, but nobody expected me to prime a flashbang still strapped to my chest.

And I've got a .45 ACP stuck an inch under my neck cover, which would explain why it seems like the air scrubbers were replaced by thin straws.

Point blank impact on the upper sternum with a high caliber round and I'm still standing; I'm marrying that suit.

Xing pops in my face, yelling at me with comical bubbling sounds, distant as if underwater.

I take the helmet off and yell back. "Can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am!"


	2. Chapter 2

The CIA spooks are quick to take our two guests off our hands and we all get a speech on how we did good but need to shut up about what happened today because they know where we live.

I still ask about the third agent, but the youngest agent tells me to stop being such a twat.

"Why do you think there's another?" The elder asks, giving a professional 'fuck you' to his partner.

I study the agent's black moustache for a moment before replying, "These two were just putting on a show, trying to hold our attention, most likely reason they'd do that would be to cover another's escape or force us to evacuate the place quickly..."

His eyes are hidden by thick sunglasses, not exactly out of place, considering the harsh sun today, but it means I can't see if he thinks I'm a nut job or a genius.

"We'll look into it," he finally concedes, turning his head toward junior a bit to get the point across, "thanks for your help, officer."

"Yeah, whatever, now where are the pretty nurses?"

The spooks leave, but aren't replaced by sexy nurses, only Yuen Xing, my old partner.

She sits next to me on the squad car's hood, helmet tucked under her arm.

Took me a while getting used to the paratrooper haircut on a girl, but Xing's pretty to begin with and she still is without her hairs, just a different kind of pretty. "This was pretty close back there…"

I know where this is going, "I'm fine, Yuen…"

Her eyes throw lightning, metaphorically, that is, "I don't give a fuck, Carp!" she sneers, "You went cowboy again, played lone wolf and risked the whole mission because you can't be bothered to think before you act!"

Now, that's just not fair! "It was a trick! I had to warn you guys!"

"And what do you think we'd have done?! Catch up with every single person that ran out of the building? We don't even know if you're right! You could have just played along until an opportunity came up, but you just blurted shit, begging to be shot in the face!"

What am I supposed to answer? She's right! If there's one thing I am proud of in myself, it's that I admit my mistakes and I do just that. "You're right," she glares at me when I put a hand on her shoulder, "I fucked up, didn't think things through, I'm sorry."

The hard spark in her face melts away slowly until it becomes a smile, "So, still hearing how awesome you are?"

Yeah, my ears are not just ringing, they're _throbbing_, but it's not so bad anymore… Oh shit.

Xing follows my gaze to the crowd of news anchors and photojournalists, let through by the removal of the police cordon, charging straight at the SWAT car, thus, us.

We're surrounded before having the slightest chance of a tactical retreat and the questions start raining like fire from a minigun.

"Sergeant Carpenter! What happened to your armor?" goes a living Barbie doll, followed by Ken, "Officer, is it true that you took out a terrorist cell single-handedly and without firing a shot?"

Xing is assaulted as well, but neither of us can answer questions about the operation and we say as much.

They still keep blurting out inquiries about what happened, like we'd change our mind somehow. The cordon is supposed to be up until tactical teams are gone. Someone is going to get yelled at tonight.

No way I can push through these guys without knocking out a few, so Xing and I just sit back and wait for them to get bored…

"Sergeant Carpenter! Why are you hanging out with..." Whatever he says next is drowned in yet another wave of differently formulated questions, but I spot the one who said that and step off the car. Everyone steers clear but that fuckwit, some dumbass radio host with a recorder.

It takes a few second for the crowd to grow quiet enough, when it does, the silence is damn near eerie, "Repeat the question." I'm in the guy's face now, not touching him, but just barely.

"I was asking why a war hero hangs out with one of _them, _ I mean, you fought them in Anchorage, you of all people…"

Xing tries to pull me away and I don't struggle, facing her instead. "Don't worry, Yuen, I'm not looking for a fight."

She seems exasperated, but lets me go. "Officer Yuen Xing is Taiwanese, her people has been fighting the Chinese since world war two, they are some of our most trusted allies and each of them has sacrificed more than you can conceive so you can get to ask stupid questions…"

Anyone with half a brain would understand this conversation is over, but he just can't resist the urge for some more materials to twist in his show and blurts out something even stupider, "How do you know? They look the same!"

"I know she's not a Chinese spy because I've known her for twenty years now…" A bit more, actually, but we lost touch when her parents were stacked away in some work camp because of dipshits like this guy.

"I'm sure many here would have said the same about their co-workers, yet you were called here today and we all know China's behind all this, maybe her presence here is no coincidence."

I'll be honest, he actually makes me doubt a second. Yeah, Xing hates America and she would have had time to grab whatever valuables were in there, but I also resent the U.S. and am just as likely a suspect as she is. That's not the point anyway, this guy suspects her based on appearances and that's a load of crap in my opinion.

Before I get to tell him, though, Barbie shoves the guy back and begins ranting about Officer Xing's service history, which she carefully researched before asking dumbass questions.

As the woman is now screaming to the whimpering radio host, Yuen Xing was immigrated in Canada twenty-four years ago, alone. Only six years old at the time, she grew up in Quebec, living with her older brother, who got shot when she turned ten. A few years later, Yuen got three jobs as barmaid, stripper and courier as to bring her family oversea, only to have them be locked up by paranoid pencil necks.

She went on to become a member of the Mounted Police and, by extension, the U.S. Army Intelligence corps, where her appearance allowed her to perform undercover missions for a few years, where she and I met, until we got transferred to Special Weapons And Tactics, LAPD department, to help with food riots.

My story's much the same, except I was born in Denver and my family was never locked up. Hers got set free on the day she graduated, a gift from one of the instructors, I suppose.

Then, we were sent to help in Anchorage for a few months, until it finally fell back in American hands half a year ago, but that's a far more detailed version of the woman's rant and I doubt the guy catches all of it as he is chased back to his car.

Before we get to see the completion of this, the boss hails us on the radio. We're heading home.

Protectrons are already patrolling the area, blurting out how everything will be alright and actual cops are nowhere to be seen. That must be why the cordon was removed. Fucking budget cuts.

The helmet shields me from the flashes as I climb into the armored car. Not much traffic these days, so we should reach central soon enough.

I end up squeezed between Swanson and the boss in the back of the van, getting praised for being a badass by the former and catching shit for being a cowboy by the later.

"You made me the friggin' negotiator, I negotiated!" She doesn't think it's funny. Swan thinks it's hilarious.

"It's not a game, Fred, you could have gotten us all killed."

This again? "Look, I got the mom talk from Xing already, can we skip straight to the medal part?"

Kenneth scoffs at that. He's been in this precinct since before robots were invented, when he scoffs at you, you know you just said something so stupid it got through decades of hardship and experience patrolling the streets of Vegas, and that's an achievement in itself.

"Kid, you can't get a medal for something that didn't happen and we were never there…" He pops open a cooler and tosses me a bottle of Nuka-Cola Victory "There's your reward, hero."

Nothing like ingesting radioactive liquid to give yourself a little boost… The massive amount of sugar and caffeine helps too.

There's no traffic, but there are plenty of rioters clogging the streets and we soon slow down to a crawl. Power armored troopers already handle most of the food riots, so it's none of our concern, but that doesn't make me feel any better. People are hungry, they're desperate and they want their government to do something about it, but all they get is a police baton across the skull and knuckle sandwiches.

But what can we do? Turn red? Fuck that, I'm still American, this is my country and I'll tear off my own balls before I just give it up to a bunch of corporate fuck-tards.

Ah, who am I kidding, I'm their bitch and everyone know it, might as well enjoy the Nuka before they make me drink baby tears.


End file.
